Here is your chance to vote for your favourite movie characters of all time! Hopefully we’ll get a good turnout of votes and help determine just which characters are loved by the Empire elite and why….

1. You must vote for a top 30, top 20 or a top 10. It is up to you whether which of these you choose but be aware that the same points system applies to all so your number 1 will get 30pts. Top 10's (30-21pnts) Top 20's (30-11pnts) and Top 30's (30-1pnts). Here's a handy example of how to vote:

3. If anyone wishes to amend their list before the closing date please quote your original list and post your new one. That is vital as I count as you post and will not be going back to check on lists I have already counted. You can also PM your list to myself.

4. The current closing date is scheduled for the end of February which gives people just over three months to get their votes in.

5. You must have a minimum of 5 posts in the forum to be able to vote.

6. Where possible please give the full name of the character. If the character has been portrayed more than once, please give the name of the actor as well as the character (example with The Joker above). If you think the name of the character could be confused with another then please state the movie in which it appears.

7. Eligible characters can be human, animated, puppets and so forth. If there are any decisions to be made along the way regarding certain characters then they will be decided at the time.

8. There are no rules limiting the amount of characters you can vote for from one particular movie. If you want to vote for 20 Star Wars characters then you are free to do so.

Interesting noticings / potential discussion points: While going through my IMDB list, sorted on imdb rating, to make sure I would not miss a character I noticed something, which may sound obvious but that I had never thought about. I noticed that my favorite movies consist of an ensemble of great characters, rather than having one really great character. Exceptions exist for outstanding performances, of course. But I figured that I could not name a personal favorite character out of a lot of my favorite movies. While I had no trouble picking the best character out of a movie, which I thougt was average to good. Somewhat more interesting, there were instances where I highly disliked a movie but could immediately think of the character I enjoyed the most. Perhaps not too weird of a point, but something I felt worth noting. Something else I noticed was that Pixar does not put out particularly strong characters, rather than a really strong ensemble. However, they do keep their ensemble small enough that there is no fatigue in the amount of characters.

My major noticing was, however, something I kind of knew already. Characters are more to be admired for what happens to them than what they do. There are so many characters who I wanted to pick, but that are not per se great characters. We just admire them for what has happened to them. Adam in 50/50 for example, he barely does anything than reacting to his cancer. There are no instances that he says or does something that makes his persona extraordinary. Kind of like why I think Lupita Nyong'O won her oscar.